The time that Laurie beat Big Mal on the Origin stage

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His big, dark eyes are zeroing in on the corner post, and wherever Big Mal's eyes are going there is every chance that those enormous thighs, forearms and eyebrows are not far behind.

It is the second game of the 1993 State of Origin series. It is the last minute. NSW cling to a 16-12 lead but there's Mal Meninga, the Queensland captain, breaking the line and thundering towards the corner, ready to inflict another signature comeback win with seconds remaining.

Phil Gould, the NSW coach, is sitting in the stands, grimacing. "When I looked back to see who was cover defending," he recalls, "all I could see was the six of Laurie Daley coming from nowhere."

Daley had long revered Meninga, his Raiders captain.

When he was selected for NSW for the first time in 1989, he approached Mal at Raiders training and innocently enquired about the interstate battle.

"It's nothing special," Meninga told him. "Just another game."

Meninga then bashed Daley from one end of Lang Park to the other.

"Carved me," Daley recalls. "That was a good lesson in what Origin was about. I thought coming up against my club captain, I'd handle him. He'll take it easy on me. That wasn't the case - because he belted me."

After Daley was named as captain in 1992, he was daunted by the task. He'd never led a side before.

Mal wouldn't concede an inch, either. He'd leave Daley waiting in the tunnel, standing in his shorts, for the coin toss.

And now, here they were, old bull and young bull, opposing captains, Raiders teammates, squaring off in the final minute of an Origin with everything to win and a fair bit to lose.

Meninga looks at Daley. Then the corner post. Then at Daley.

Says Gould: "Three or four years earlier, Mal would've just swatted Laurie out of the way and set off for the tryline."

Not this time. This time he looks at Daley, then he looks at the corner post, then he looks at Daley again.

Then HMAS Meninga drops anchor, backs off and waits for support. Mark Hohn drops the ball. NSW retains possession. The Blues win the match, and thereby the series.

Gould spies Daley in the dressing room afterwards and pumps his hand. "You've got him," he says. "The table has turned."

It is a tantalising symmetry to consider as Daley assumes control of the Blues side again, up against Meninga again, but this time as coach.

Tomorrow night, he will be plotting victory for the Indigenous All Stars against an NRL team at Suncorp Stadium, instructing the likes of Thurston, Inglis and Hodges, who he'll try to dismantle in a few months' time.

Sitting in the bar at the Indigenous team's hotel in Brisbane, sipping on a bottle of Coke, Daley is typically calm about the onerous task of snapping a seven-series Queensland fairytale in half.

"I can only do what I can do," he says. "I'm no Messiah. I can't promise victories. I can't promise anyone anything. But I'll give them every opportunity. Whether that's good enough, that's to be decided."

Some have already made up their minds. Daley's All Stars counterpart, Wayne Bennett, has been blunt in his assessment of Daley's appointment, claiming the Maroons' task had been made easier because Ricky Stuart had been overlooked.

It is understood that opinion was more a shot at NSWRL powerbrokers, who refused to let Stuart juggle club commitments for Parramatta and the taxing Blues job he was just starting to warm to.

"I understood Wayne's comments," Daley says. "It wasn't malicious. He said they've gone with an untried coach, which they have, so I can't dispute the facts."

What cannot be disputed is Daley's record, and at Origin level that extends far deeper than the 23 matches he played, and the series won while he was captain.

Stuart said it himself at last year's Brad Fittler Medal night, in grand final week.

"I played Origin," Stuart told the large crowd. "The bloke who is about to coach you owned it."

Did you own it? "I don't know about that," says Daley.

Did he own it? "Never a more accurate word has been spoken," says Gould. "That's why he's the right man for the job. He knows Origin just as well as anyone. Talk to Craig Bellamy, one of the great coaches of all time. He had three years as NSW coach and he said to me at the end of it, 'I'm just starting to understand this is different'. Laurie's got a head start."

Fittler knows Daley owned it, because he was standing next to him as he did it. The pair of them would swap between five-eighth and centre, and when Fittler was overlooked for the NSW coach's job this year, he knew the best thing to do would be to remain involved as an assistant, instead of walking away. Trent Barrett is the same.

"He was just tough," says Fittler. "You hear the likes of Anthony Mundine criticise him, but what you never hear about Laurie, what you never see written about him, was his defence. He was the best defender. It wasn't the big hits, he just didn't miss any. That's why everyone wanted to play with Laurie. He held the wall."

Daley is holding the wall again. He diligently occupies a desk at the NSWRL every day. After last month's Blues in Waiting camp, he sent a note to every NRL club to thank them for releasing their prodigious talent during a key phase of pre-season training.

"That's a mature approach," says Fittler. "He's not backing his Origin record to win support. He's doing it with class. And he's showing his toughness now. He is being criticised, others are baiting him, but he's not taking it. It doesn't worry him."

Mundine's criticism, before his fight with Daniel Geale, in which he again launched into Daley's record and questioned his indigenous heritage, was another cheap shot but one handled with typical Daley serenity.

History records Daley as a multiple premiership and Origin winner. For all his flashiness, Mundine is the five-eighth who dropped the ball over the line in a grand final for the Dragons.

"I know what I can do," says Daley. "I can't be worried about the judgments of other people. I've never had an issue with Choc. I have seen him face to face and I've never had an issue. And I won't have an issue. I don't hold grudges.

"For me, I've always been proud of who I am. I've never hidden from it. I've never said to people, 'No, I'm not Aboriginal'. For whatever reason, it's never come up. When I was growing up I was always judged on what I did in the community and how you played your sport. I've never shied away from it.

"Maybe people look at me and think, 'How can he be Aboriginal?' I'm very proud of our heritage. I'm big enough to cop whatever people say about me. I know what type of soul I am."

Gould knows, too. Tell him people are underestimating his former captain and the former coach laughs.